


theorycrafting

by fiordilatte



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Galaxy Garrison, Masturbation, Pre-Canon, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 22:37:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10371303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiordilatte/pseuds/fiordilatte
Summary: Katie overthinks it.  At least Lance is oblivious, and not interested.  Pre-canon, set during the semester at Galaxy Garrison.





	

In recent memory, being smart hasn’t been that fun. Yeah, no. It doesn’t protect her from her thoughts and fears, just amplifies them and opens up exponential new worries that most people would never consider. It makes her paranoid and anxious, and forces her to always keep herself busy. Being smart just means that she’s always thinking, always running her brain at max capacity, always one fuse short from blowing something up. Hey, maybe then someone will listen to what she has to say.

Being smart is _easy,_ though, and it makes most things in life feel like a joke because every problem has quantifiable answers. And on the odd occasion that there aren’t any answers, Katie Holt has all the workarounds right at her fingertips. It’s like clockwork for her, data mining and effortlessly pulling solutions from places that she shouldn’t even have access to. Cheat codes and military blueprints, test banks and little things like government footage. Smooth. Clean. Untraceable. There’s a happy ending for her somewhere, and it starts with hazmat suits and industrial-grade explosives.

She graduated high school early, intent on one day joining her father and brother on their space expeditions. She skipped grades, built robots that earned her shining scholarships, got shortlisted for Galaxy Garrison in record time, then promptly hacked into student records to suit her needs (because what’s the point of taking an academic opportunity if she doesn’t make the most of it?). Ambition has always made her like that.

School is easy. Katie doesn’t need it. The physical training in the current module is a bit more challenging, she’ll admit, but she’s wiry and stronger than her peers think she is. She runs obstacle courses like her life depends on it, sprints around the track till her calves burn, and fires calculated headshots with a 9 millimetre handgun at target practice. Either way, the little piece of paper that Galaxy Garrison will hand out when she graduates is pretty much a formality. But Dad said she needs to get it for the big space agencies to take her seriously, so here she is, stuck in a dorm with her very own three-man cadet unit. Just like her brother Matt before her. Her teammates are nice, she supposes, in an arm’s-length kind of way. Lance Santiago is tall and Hunk Garrett follows rules; Katie Holt has neither of those traits and they all get along... well enough.

At the Garrison, she keeps everything under wraps anyway. Her identity, her goals, her dreams, her feelings - none of it comes up to surface until her family is back in one piece. She’s set up careful walls around herself, built impenetrable defenses for Pidge Gunderson and made one-hundred percent sure that -

_(she’s very lonely)_

\- no one will ever figure her out.

Once the door to her room slides shut, she drops her canvas bag to the carpeted floor and lets her muscles unwind while she tries to unscramble her head after a long day. It’s been a year and she isn’t any closer to piecing her family back together. No matter how much research she does, no matter how much new tech she builds. It’s frustrating to do it all alone, and sometimes it even seems impossible, but she can’t tell anyone about it without getting herself into more trouble. She’s already been caught once, and now there are people out there who want to arrest her - it kind of makes her a badass. Matt would simultaneously be very proud and very horrified.

She glances at the small mirror hanging on her wall, raises a tired eyebrow at the boy who looks back at her through his thick glasses. He is exhausted. Also very pasty. Katie gazes blankly at her reflection, at the circles under her eyes and the freckles on her cheeks and the haircut that she never wanted. Hi, Pidge Gunderson! Time to take a break from you and remember how to be the human named Katie for approximately eight hours.

Some nights it’s hard to tell the difference.

Tomorrow she’ll try the satellite again, recalibrate it to pick up different signals. Something has to work. She’ll _make_ it work, because she can’t accept any other outcome. That would mean giving up, and Holts don’t give up. But tonight she’s frustrated and completely drained, and can’t seem to focus on anything except -

She shakes her head vehemently, but it doesn’t change the facts. Katie knows it’s a distraction, drills that thought deep into her brain and doesn’t ever let herself forget it. She has goals, after all. She needs to find her family first, keep them at the top of her priority list and just do away with fleeting romantic notions that will mean nothing at the end of the semester. Besides, what would Matt think? What would _Dad_ think?

Of course her logical self tells her that, well, they’d probably be ecstatic to know that in at least one facet of her life she is a normal teenager who has normal crushes. Yeah, it won’t be that bad. Maybe they’ll even get to gloss over the whole discussion about her masturbatory tendencies. Presumably. A girl can dream.

It’s just that... she’s always thought if she were to date someone they’d both already be well settled into their respective careers, Very Successful Adults each on the cusp of a dozen scientific breakthroughs. Or maybe she’d just date a cyborg. And yet, in the recent pattern of irrational life choices she’s made, Katie has realized that she really, really likes Lance Santiago. The same boy who is a shameless ladies’ man with sixteen crash landings under his belt. She admits that this crush is a slight deviation from plans. Uh. So much for being a prodigy?

Pidge Gunderson unravels in front of the mirror and becomes Katie Holt again. She undresses herself methodically as per usual, pulling the baggy sweater over her head, undoing the Velcro of her chest binder and sliding out of her canvas shorts. The cool air washes over her, and Katie lets her skin breathe for a moment, inhaling deeply when the restrictive layers of fabric finally release their hold on her. She’s got a thin frame but she’s tightly wound, lithe like a cat with the reaction time to boot.

Looking at her reflection, she sees all the red marks where the compression binder has been cutting into her skin all day - probably wore it for too long again, against the advice on every single warning label that it came with. Not the best idea, but at least she gets to have a break now. It’s strange to see herself in the mirror, when she’s done pretending to be Pidge for the day. When she’s just Katie - without the complicated backstory or the convoluted crossdressing routine that seemed like a perfectly logical solution at the time of inception, but is mostly inconvenient and sweaty. Just Katie, without the bullshit and the discomfort and the anger. Katie who wants to be - _will_ be - a roboticist in the near future, Katie who wants to go to space with her family and journey past the exosphere to find out just how much she doesn’t know about this universe.

She pulls a loose top over her head and flops back onto her sheets, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light of her dorm. In a way, it doesn’t matter what name she picks or what other people think about her, because the only things she needs are her brain and her tech... and the rest of her family back together again.

Besides, she’s seen how Lance gets, seen how he flirts his way through hallways and practically falls over himself trying to impress every girl he meets. It’s not as though she has any right to be jealous. She’s a liar and a bad teammate: doesn’t even attempt to fit in, and pushes him away every time he tries to be her friend.

It’s not vindictive or spiteful, but it feels that way. Maybe if she tries hard enough, she’ll forget how to care completely.

She still pretends it’s him, still imagines how it would feel to _be_ with him, still does the math for all the what-ifs and life permutations. She doesn’t need a boyfriend (because that would be pathetic, and robots are cooler anyway) but sometimes she thinks it would be nice to have one, and to be able to tell him exactly who she is without worrying about getting caught by a few pesky military officials. _Hey Lance, I’d love to take you to my bed and screw you senseless, but I may have lied to you about everything and I’m sort of a wanted cyber criminal, is that going to be a problem for our relationship? But uh, you like girls, right? Because I’m... totally a girl. I’m eligible. I swear._

He’ll touch her here, and here, and _here;_ he’ll find every one of her weak spots and make her crumble. He makes her feel light headed, no longer reserved or distant. Just wanting. And it’s weird. Is it okay to be weird? Katarina Holt, who has never needed anyone besides her family, weak-kneed thinking about a boy that she will never get to really know.

Lance-in-her-fantasies isn’t clumsy or silly or tripping over himself to impress her. He knows exactly what to say and exactly how to hold her - which is definitely stretching her imagination, she thinks wryly. But that’s sort of the point. None of this is real. And maybe it’s a little easier this way, to convince herself that what she’s doing is normal, that she’s not irreparably crazy for wanting something like this to happen.

She sees his dark eyelashes, pictures his bright blue eyes meeting her hazel ones, imagines the broad smile on his lips when he leans down to kiss her. His hand reaches to trace her jaw, and he combs his fingers through her short hair when their lips crush together. The blood rushes to her cheeks, but she holds that thought in her head, lets it carry her forward and beyond lust.

It’s easy enough to talk to him, in that awkward, roundabout way that teenagers have. She just has to throw sarcastic one-liners in his general direction and play the part of the long-suffering, child-genius comm spec. Which, to be fair, isn’t much of an act. She’s always had a sharp tongue, and doesn’t bother being gentle with it. But Lance takes it all in stride, catches everything she can throw at him and rolls his eyes and laughs at his strange friend Pidge. And his eyes shine like sea glass when he leans in and declares, _We’re gonna be best buds one day._

_Are you threatening me?_ she’d asked once, to test him, and he’d grinned and offered her a slice of pizza and said, _Yeah, I guess I am._

They bicker and never agree on combat tactics, fight over starship callsigns and crash land their flight sims. She blows off every team bonding activity he dreams up and he messes around with all her off-limits tech. They argue and snipe and barely scrape their way through practical exams by sheer dumb luck, and not even her technical prowess can replace the need for real teamwork. Maybe the cogs don’t all fit together, but Lance hasn’t given up.

_Hey Pidge, why are you so scared of being friends with me?_

It’s not that Katie is an unfeeling, soulless automaton, no matter how much she wishes that were true. The technology isn’t here yet, that’s all. And it’s not that she’s pining for him, because she doesn’t have the time or interest to let herself waste away over something like that. There are more important things to do. But she doesn’t shut herself off from the notion completely - because it would be worse to just bottle it up and hide from who she is. So she lets herself feel vulnerable from time to time. She lets herself think about Katie-And-Lance.

She’s getting wet already, panties dampening as she rubs her clit through the thin cotton. His hand caresses her waist, dips into the elastic of her underwear, and slides the cotton down her slender hips. Lance’s voice is a low breathy murmur that makes her go limp, and it’s crazy and terrifyingly corny that something on Earth could ever have her feeling this way. It’s a worrying trend, in the grand scheme of great American space romances.

She imagines his hands moving down her thighs and she shivers, still a little nervous, still a little self-conscious. He makes her feel soft, malleable, like he could do whatever he wanted to her if she let her guard down. And... somehow, right now, he makes her feel safe. Which, okay, is probably insane, considering his track record as a pilot, but she’ll take her chances. The calculated risk isn’t too bad considering everything else she’s been through.

Katie’s not entirely sure how far she’s taking this, but she does think she’d love to have him pin her down against these sheets and do _anything._ As she runs her fingertips along her skin, she envisions his hands tracing the curves of her hips and waist, sliding up to touch her breasts, feeling her nipples poking through the flimsy fabric of her shirt. And then....

_Please,_ she says. Her mouth is dry, and it’s hard to breathe.

Lance smiles. Katie feels her face turn bright red.

He slides one finger in and she moans, arching her back against the mattress, opening herself up to him completely. She’s got one hand pressing into the sheets, white-knuckled; the other is twined tight in his because she doesn’t want to let him go. He’s made an impression on her and she hasn’t been able to ignore it, no matter how hard she tries.

_It’s okay, Katie,_ he murmurs gently, breath ghosting against her ear, _I’m not... going... anywhere._

And for a second, she believes him. Her name sounds nice when he says it.

He’ll definitely be more experienced than her, she decides. But maybe he won’t mind that she’s not tall and curvy and well-endowed. Maybe he won’t care that she’s stiff and unsure. It would be weird, kind of, to have him look at her the way he looks at other girls, but it wouldn’t be unpleasant. She might even like it a lot.

He’s fingerfucking her with a knowing look on his face, and for that brief moment she wonders, _Am I really doing this because oh god it’s so embarrassing._ Katie worries about it, but she can’t stop now, a soft mewling noise escaping her lips as she continues to let her imagination spiral. He trails kisses down her skin - from her lips, to her neck, lingering just a little longer over her breasts. Lance doesn’t stop until his face is between her legs, and Katie is too far gone to say anything about it.

Her crush teases her, flicking his tongue across her clit in rhythm to his fingers. Then he sucks on the tiny, sensitive nub with just enough pressure to make her writhe. He talks a big game but he knows how to put his mouth to use, and there’s no way she’ll be able to wipe the smirk off his face now. _You like that, right?_ She gasps quietly, gyrating softly against her fingers, pushing herself to her limit. Friction is so much easier to calculate when it’s a simple concept in physics class. But sometimes this way feels better.

_Yeah,_ she admits, sounding more sheepish than she’d like to. Heat engulfs her, and soon she’s biting the back of her hand to stifle her voice. She lets her fingers circle faster, builds herself to a frantic rhythm. She needs it, needs to feel it, has to know, please Lance just - _fuck._ For this instant, she’s his completely.

Then he says, so softly she has to strain to hear him, _Katie, I -_

She bites her lip hard and stifles a whimper when she comes, Lance’s name a silent whisper on her lips. A few breathy shudders while her muscles tighten - and suddenly there’s nothing left but sweat and emotions that she’s not even sure are real. It’s one of the worst feelings in the universe, to fall back into this hollowness and remember that she’s lost everything.

But why should she force herself to be miserable forever?

There’s a knock on her door, and she freezes, the blood in her veins turning to ice. She knows that she’s better than this, and she won’t let herself fall apart because a stupid boy (well, he’s not _that_ stupid).

“Hey Pidge!” Lance greets, the cheerfully oblivious self-appointed team captain of the Santiago-Garrett-Gunderson Squad. His voice floats into her room, boyish and peppy. There’s a comforting earnestness to it. “We have that flight sim midterm tomorrow, so I hope you’re ready to, uh, communicate the hell out of those... comms. Whatever. You’re the expert, I trust you!”

“Sure,” she manages to say, one hand still lingering in the slippery spot between her legs. Her face is hot and her breath is raspy, but her tone is satisfyingly flat and she doesn’t give anything away. She has too many lies to spin now, and she’d rather die than let her teammates catch her like this. If she gets caught, for any reason, it had better be for doing something cool. Fortunately, for all his alleged skill with a firearm, Lance Santiago is pretty unobservant about everything in life that isn’t a target down range - particularly in the realm of crossdressing girls who have unrequited crushes on him. “It’s only forty-five percent of the course grade,” she continues, composing herself. “No pressure.”  Sarcasm is an easy skin to wear, and she slips right back into it without batting an eye.  No commitment required:  he won’t take a hint if she never drops one.  

“Aw man, don’t remind me about that part.” Lance has some misguided sense of pride on the line with this exam - something to do with his overachieving older siblings. They set a precedent for scholarships and honours degrees before he even graduated high school, and it seems to be a sore spot for him.

She’s lucky, in that sense. Matt has never made her feel that way. He makes her want to be competitive, sure - but never inadequate. Still, it’s nice to have ambitions. Lance takes it in good nature, but he’s definitely looking to prove himself this semester. It must be hard to live up to those expectations, even though he doesn’t say it out loud. They’re both liars, in their own ways. Katie’s just leagues ahead of him.

“I just... really want us to do well this time,” her teammate adds, filling the silence.

“This time,” she echoes quietly to herself, because their team isn’t exactly the most cohesive unit in the program. “We’ll be fine, Lance!” she says, a little forcefully. It’s even a bit mean, and she can practically see him flinch behind the door, because he’s soft and he cares too much about what people think. Lance puts up a hundred different fronts but she’s seen him crack under pressure, get homesick and cry when the weight of leadership gets to be too much for his shoulders. But at least his family is always just a phone call away. She’d kill for that kind of assurance.

“I know that,” Lance says evenly. “Just making sure you’re on board with the team.”

“When am I not?” she retorts. “I am a shining beacon of enthusiasm.”

Lance just laughs, and Katie feels herself crack a thin-lipped smile. “Goodnight, dude.” And that’s that.  

Pidge Gunderson isn’t a very nice boy, and he’s certainly not a team player. That’s the whole point of building a fake persona. It’s not really mysterious, though, Katie decides, while she trembles in the dull throb of her aftershocks. It’s more of a hidden in plain sight kind of deal, with sordid little secrets and feelings that she can’t voice.

_(Katie, I -)_

But Lance is like a stubborn piece of tech that needs debugging; something that she reminds herself she’ll take care of later but doesn’t really get around to. Four months in and he’s still insisting, _We have to be bros, Pidge - we have to be best friends ‘cause Garrison teams are friends for life and we can’t betray that tradition!_

_Well I guess I’m not a traditionalist, huh._

She thinks of how sitting next to him puts her nerves on edge, how he sets her pulse racing beneath the layers of lies and fabrications. She thinks of how much it hurts to whisper his name into her pillow and to know that it’ll never happen because it’s not _supposed_ to happen. But at the back of her head she wonders if it could have happened, if she’d just told the truth and been Katie-with-a-ponytail, Katie-with-a-dress.

Katie without the crushing disappointment and the holes in her heart.

She hugs her pillow to her chest, curling herself up into a ball while she blinks back tears. Everything is so heavy. It’s like suffocating.

_I hate myself._

It might be nice, she thinks, to hold his hand one day and wear something pretty and tell him that she likes him as much as she likes robots and serialized sci-fi. It’s not fair that Lance can only be hers in some stupid nighttime fantasy, and that tomorrow she’ll have to be Pidge again and act like she doesn’t care.

Sometimes, she wishes she could just tell him everything.

-  
-

_(Katie, I love you.)_

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! fic was partly inspired by this [fanart](http://fanart-rainbox.tumblr.com/post/151849500606/%D9%A5more) :D


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